


The Emperor and the Storyteller

by Leryline



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: A Thousand and One Nights AU, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Angst, Emperor Oikawa Tooru, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, carpenter/storyteller ushijima, is oikawa tooru crazy?? stay tuned to find out, mattsun is a Sneak, oikawa is super emo, past Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 18:37:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7185443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leryline/pseuds/Leryline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Many people claimed that Oikawa Tōru was mad.</p><p>Ever since the death of his lover he had taken over a thousand virgins to bed, all of whom spilled their blood at the dawn of the next day. However, when affronted with the elusive carpenter Ushijima Wakatoshi, Oikawa discovers a world of untold stories and artful tales that last into the early hours of the morning and never cease to flood him with wonder.</p><p>As Ushijima's life is tentatively extended night by night, there is only one baited question in the imperial court: will Ushijima Wakatoshi live, or will he die like the rest?</p><p>[Or: the A Thousand and One Nights AU that this fandom needs.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The First Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's the middle of exam week and what do it do????? start another fuckin. ushioi fic. ofc
> 
> anyway i had the uncontrollable urge to write some kind of royalty au but trying to write japanese characters in a european setting is so???weird?? so in the end i came up with THIS au, based on the 1001 Nights story but set in feudal Japan. just in case anyone needed to know. i also wanted to post this before i go abroad !!! so ya tell me what u think (☞ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)☞
> 
>  **EDIT:** so through my research i learned that "shogun" and "shogunate" were being used in the wrong context, so I changed them to "damiyo", which is basically the word used for powerful feudal lords of Japan at the time. so ya let's forget that ever happened lmao

Oikawa Tōru, many said, was insane.

They said he’d gone insane when his past lover died, his childhood friend. His _only_ friend. But, of course, they were merely rumours that spread amongst the gentry behind closed doors, and the emperor’s advisors did the best they could to quell them, but to little effect. No amount of official declarations could match the running of a ronin’s mouth.

Oikawa Tōru wasn’t really insane. The only person who really seemed to know that was him.

“P-please,” the little man sitting at the low hardwood table across the room stammered. “You may marry and take concubines, your Grace, it is entirely legal –,”

“I don’t _want_ concubines!” Oikawa interrupted, teeth snapping in annoyance. Irritated, he shifts his heavy robes about him, blowing a loose strand of hair out of his face. “I’ve no interest in getting married, either.”

The men sat about the room looked pained. This was the third day of meetings – constant, draining meetings. Oikawa would have much rather been out riding or swimming or _pulling out his own toenails_ than having to sit through a cluster of crusty old men showing him prints of women. They were all just as frustrated with the young emperor, too, and it showed clearly on their faces.

“Your Grace, you are the emperor now. It is expected of you to wed and produce an heir quickly.” This time another man spoke up; he was broad and solid and had impermeable eyes. He wasn’t as flaky as the other man had been, and Oikawa couldn’t quite remember having seen him before. He licked his lips appreciatively.

“So what? I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask for any of this! You can take your heirs and shove them right up your –,”

“If I may,” called yet another voice over Oikawa’s. It belonged to yet another man in yet more gold-trimmed robes, and he held out a fat hand to demand attention. Oikawa gnawed at the inside of his cheek, his being so rudely interrupted only mounting upon his annoyance. He didn’t care for being ordered around like this – he was only twenty-two. He didn’t want a wife, and he most certainly didn’t want a child. “There is another… rather pressing matter we ought to attend to.” Out of his pocket he drew a tightly-wound scroll, tied up with red string. Oikawa straightened up, his curiosity piqued.

The small council bristled with anticipation, but the man holding the scroll looked tired as he unfurled it and lay it across the table, the black calligraphy sprawled elegantly over the parchment.

“The reason we called these meetings, your Grace, is because you have been acting rather… untowards as of late. Concerning the lovers you have been taking.”

Oikawa arched his eyebrows as though he knew nothing. The man, in turn, grimaced and read on, his finger inching down the page.

“You have been overseeing campaigns in various _damiyo_ land holdings recently, which have gone exceedingly well overlooking one minor detail… that being your habit of executing your lovers the morning after you bed them.” His voice was flat and reluctant and the whole room erupted in a displeased, nervous murmur. Oikawa bit back a laugh. “We’ve been able to cover things up thus far, but your conduct is rather unsavoury and we, as your advisors, would rather you not spook your subjects so recently into your reign.”

Oikawa tossed his head a little bit, the headdress strapped to his head making his neck ache. _What’s the point getting dressed up just to sit in a room all day?_ he thought glumly to himself.

The scroll slid down the table, the other advisors taking time to peruse it. As it traveled Oikawa heard clicks and hums of disapproval, and some of mere amazement. “On what grounds do you execute them?” someone asked. “I recognise no names here. Peasants, I suppose?”

“To act like this with members of the _damiyo_  would be very unwise.”

Oikawa rolled his eyes. _I’m not without a brain between my ears._

The man with the black eyes spoke again. “The people around the palace are beginning to whisper of these things, your Grace. They believe you mad, and while it has the status of a mere legend at this stage of time, I would advise you to stop this before things get out of hand.”

Oikawa rolled his eyes and hauled himself to his feet, stretching out his numb toes and knees. Flattening down the bright azure of his robes he bowed deeply, hands pressed together before his face in a gesture that was purely mocking. “Gentleman, I bid you good day.” And without another word, he left.

He gathered his robes up into his arms as he walked away from the meeting hall, revealing his _tabi_ -clad feet as they padded along the floor. Various staff ducked out of his way, staring curiously after him after hearing him mumbling discontentedly as he passed.

“Unbelievable,” he snapped to himself, tearing the headdress from his head and shoving it into the arms of a poor steward, who looked bewildered and a little frightened. “It’s _my_ reign and I can do what I please.”

Oikawa knew the fleetingness of life. Life was something he deemed unimportant, even in himself, but ever since his father died and left him as the emperor he couldn’t put himself at the risks he usually would. He’d lost his freedom when his father had died. He hadn’t even _been_ there.

And then his lover, his only friend, had died in his arms.

No, Oikawa Tōru wasn’t insane. He had his reasons, and he had more than his fair share of demons that could only be put to rest by death.

 _Who cares,_ he thought bitterly as he kicked open the door to his chambers, cheeks flushed and angry. When he whirled around to try and close it, however, it jammed, and no matter how much Oikawa grunted and shoved at it, it just wouldn’t shut.

“Kindaichi!” Oikawa barked, and not a few moments later did a tall, lanky young boy come running over, skidding a little on the polished floor. His head – hair amusingly arranged to direct straight towards the ceiling – bobbed quickly, merely a formality. Oikawa jabbed a finger at the door and he jiggled it to show that it wouldn’t move. “It’s broken. Get someone in immediately.”

Kindaichi, after recovering from the shock of being addressed directly, mumbled something, bobbed his head again, and ran back the direction from which he’d come. That door had been giving Oikawa trouble for months, but he’d never really thought anything of it before. He regretted it immensely, now; when he most wanted privacy he was denied it.

Even though the door stood open, Oikawa began to shed his robes; usually he’d do it with the help of a handmaid, but he wasn’t supposed to get out of his meeting for at least another hour, and so his room was empty, handmaids nowhere to be seen. He struggled a little untying the sashes and cords wrapped around his waist, but soon he managed to strip down to his bare skin, shrugging on a simple silk yukata and kicking the heavy blue material into a corner of the room.

He flung himself down on his bed, staring up at the ornately carved ceiling above his head; dragons were carved into the beams amidst flora and dovetails, their jade eyes glinting at him. They’d always frightened him as a child, but now he found a strange kind of comfort in them and their constant, unflinching companionship.

It only seemed like a few moments later that there was a sharp knock at the door. Oikawa, rising to his elbows, realised he must have somehow fallen asleep; he registered the faint murmur of many voices clustered together outside his chambers, and in the doorway stood his most trusted friend from the gentry, Matsukawa Issei, his hooded eyes peering curiously around, one hand tucked lazily into the neck of his kimono. He spent most of his time in the bustling outside city, but claimed he’d been stopping by the palace and thought he’d drop in for some ‘criminal activity’ (after which he’d assured the startled court he was only joking). Behind him was a member of staff in charge of the palace’s upkeep, and there was an architect Oikawa vaguely remembered from his boyhood, and at the very back of the company was a man Oikawa didn’t recognise in the least.

“We brought a carpenter as quickly as we could, your Grace,” the architect wheezed, quite clearly out of breath. The stranger, tall and broad across the shoulders, bowed his head politely. “Please, he promises to have it repaired within the hour.”

Oikawa couldn’t take his eyes away from the carpenter. Oh, he _looked_ like a carpenter – he had stubble shadowed over his jaw and hair of the strangest brownish-green colour Oikawa had ever seen in his life, his neck thick and corded with muscle. Oikawa could see only to the man’s collar over the balding heads of the other men, but he suspected that the rest of him was just as overbearing too.

“Well, don’t just stand there. The rest of you, shoo.” Oikawa flapped his hand at the crowd that had begun to mill around his door, and they dispersed quickly in a plethora of bows.

Oh, yes, he’d been quite right. This carpenter was, indeed, a specimen.

Oikawa let himself sink back down onto his bed, long legs sprawled out before him, as the carpenter set about inspecting the door. The screens in the hall outside had been closed off, affording them at least a little privacy, and so Oikawa didn’t bother trying to conceal his roaming gaze. Not that he would’ve anyway.

The carpenter raised a hand to the crevice between the door and the wall, a small frown pulled together between his brows, and slid his fingers down it. Oikawa watched the fingers move unflinchingly, but he shivered all the same at their dexterity. There was something peculiar about the muscles in the man’s back, something almost _familiar_ about the way his hands moved with such obvious strength but such delicate accuracy. The carpenter pulled out a chisel of ivory and folded steel, slipping it gently between the door and the wall.

Oikawa couldn’t breathe as he watched those fingers, those strong, tanned arms, the slip of skin between the carpenter’s simple cotton yukata and the dark skin of his neck. The man gave the chisel a few short taps with a wooden mallet and was rewarded with a satisfying _clunk_ from somewhere within.

“What’s your name?” Oikawa found himself asking. When a pair of sharp, hawklike eyes turned to him, he straightened up, leaning forwards a little bit in rapturous curiosity.

“Surely the emperor has no desire to know the name of a peasant,” the carpenter replied, his voice deep and low enough to send a tremor coursing through the emperor’s bones. Oikawa leaned forwards on his hands; were his charms not working on this man? The skills of flattery he’d perfected in his youth were failing him, apparently; or maybe the carpenter was merely immune.

“No,” he purred, eyelids lowering in a way so alluring it was able to draw in the most frigid of people. But the carpenter, chisel still in his hand, didn’t so much as flinch. “I want to know.”

“Ushijima. Ushijima Wakatoshi.”

Oikawa licked his lips. He was sure he’d heard that name somewhere before… something out of a legend or a myth, perhaps? He’d never seen such eyes before, never such a colour, so he wouldn’t have been surprised if this Ushijima was a descendent of the sun herself. Oikawa tilted his head to the side, imagining how delicious it would look to see Ushijima’s blood coursing from his throat to his hips, bathing him in it. He imagined how those gold eyes would look doused in death; would they be as vibrant? Would they strike as much fear into his heart?

“The door is fixed.” Oikawa had been so entranced in his own thoughts that he hadn’t realised the few adjustments Ushijima gave to the door, and when he’s brought back to attention he sees the man closing the door with ease.

“Thank you…” Oikawa said slowly, mind still foggy from the excitement that had risen in his chest. “Say, would you like to fuck me?”

Perhaps he’d expected Ushijima to be started. Perhaps he’d expected him to at least blush a little bit, or for his stoic face to constrict in some way; whatever reaction he’d hoped for, Oikawa was disappointed. He stood there like a slab of stone, so infuriatingly unreadable that Oikawa quite suddenly wanted to hit him.

“I would rather not, your Grace,” Ushijima replied as though Oikawa had just asked him to lend him a book. “I am quite aware of your actions as of late and I would prefer to keep my intestines within my body for the time being.” Nonchalantly, he then went back to inspecting the door for any further damage, leaving Oikawa sitting dumbfounded on the bed. The emperor was so shocked that he had no room for anger beneath the numbing cold of his skin, but soon he found himself brimming and bristling with rage at being rejected so casually.

“I _command_ you to.”

Those golden eyes once more rose to rest upon his face and all his fine features, and the gaze became suddenly unsettling, pupils mere pinpricks of darkness. “And if I should refuse?”

Oikawa smiled thinly. Mirthlessly. “I’ll have you executed.”

The emperor detected a flicker of a smile in the man’s throat. “Ah, I see…” the carpenter straightened up, then, to his full height, the crown of his head almost touching the top of the doorframe, and he tucked one of his large hands into the neckline of his yukata. “So be it. I would rather die with my integrity intact.”

Oikawa was on his feet in an instant, peering up at the man with a bright, wicked smile on his face. “Oh, I knew it. You _are_ a virgin, aren’t you? How curious.” Reaching out with a long, elegant hand, he plucked at Ushijima’s belt, only to have his wrist caught in the grip of those rough fingers. “A man like you unmarried? How old are you, hm? Thirty? You are surely no older than thirty.”

Steady eyes. “I am twenty-eight, your Grace. I have no need for marriage nor for women.”

Oikawa, lowering his eyelids, drew in close. “What about men?”

“Neither for men.”

Oikawa pursed his lips in discontent; he arched away from the carpenter, heading towards the large, rounded window overlooking the imperial courtyard. He lay his head against the sill and sighed, one hand propped on his hip. “When you are finished, please leave. I shall send your due payment in the morning.”

Ushijima bowed in response, though something within him bristled at an unforseen change of atmosphere. He packed his tools into his small canvas bag, to which he tied to his belt, and bowed deeply once more before leaving. He shut the door behind him, and for the first time that morning Oikawa found himself in his own uninterrupted company.

Slowly, the emperor begun to pace. He sunk his chin against his chest and held his hands behind his back, walking to and fro along the long length of the room. He watched only his feet as he went.

He wasn’t entirely sure how long he spent pacing the length of his chambers, but when next he raised his head to the dragons’ jade eyes on the ceiling, they had turned from a cold green to amber, reflecting the dim light of the lamps lit in the courtyard to herald the setting of the sun. Something akin to excitement rose within him as an idea hatched in his mind, and dashing to the corner of the room he picked up one of his heavy azure robes, throwing it about his shoulders and tying it hastily about his waist. He nearly tripped over his own feet as he threw open the doors to his chambers, making his way quickly back towards the halls in which his court congregated.

Oikawa, determined not to be seen, sidled his way between the thick folds of curtain hanging on the east wall of the imperial palace’s main court. He spotted Matsukawa’s long, limber body immediately, his dark hair tousled and ungroomed.

“Psst,” Oikawa hissed sharply to him; Matsukawa turned, perhaps a little startled, and when he saw Oikawa half-hidden in the folds of fabric his eyes adopted the undeniable glimmer of promised mischief. Oikawa beckoned to him impatiently.

“Now, your Grace, you oughtn’t be hiding in such suspicious places,” Matsukawa chided him mockingly as Oikawa grabbed his sleeve and hauled him into a small, concealed alcove out of sight and earshot.

“Issei,” Oikawa began. “I need you to help me with something.”

If Matsukawa had learned one thing from his and Oikawa Tōru’s friendship, it was that the emperor _never_ asked him to do anything moral. He smiled widely.

“But of course. Anything for my emperor.”

Oikawa swatted his arm, but grinned widely all the same. “You know the carpenter who was brought to the palace to repair that door?” Matsukawa nods; a man like that was very difficult to forget. “I want him. His payment is to be delivered in the morning, and I want you to make sure he is brought here. I don’t care how badly you must beat him in order to get him to comply, but he _must_ be brought here. By any means necessary.”

Matsukawa raised a single eyebrow at him, rubbing his fingers over his chin. “Are you giving me any liberty I choose?”

“Yes,” Oikawa replied, though his voice sounded pained. “But don’t injure him beyond repair, do you understand, Issei?”

Matsukawa nodded and bowed as much as he could in the tight space. “Of course. Have I failed you yet?”

Oikawa smiled. “Not once.”

One of Oikawa’s most honed talents was that of remaining unseen. He’d always had an enormous presence, one that would positively glitter and dazzle any room into which he chose to walk; but when he wished it he could be as silent and as invisible as a shadow, something that had aided him many times before. And so Oikawa was able to slip away unnoticed from the court, his entire body tingling in anticipation for the following morning.

Some people said that Oikawa Tōru had a personal vendetta against virgins, though the reasons for which were generally unknown – Oikawa didn’t like to think of it as a vendetta, not particularly. He had his own reasons, and despite the milling of more rumours than he or his advisors could possibly keep track of, not a single one had eclipsed the truth. He’d never really cared for the opinions of others anyway.

Once back in his chambers he cast himself back onto his bed, arms flung over his head; he gazed up at the jade-eyed dragons and said to them, “This, I feel, will be the most interesting one yet.” And then he smiled, wide and wicked.

He’d seen a mystery in the golden eyes of Ushijima Wakatoshi, and he very much intended to discover it.


	2. The Second Night

“Hey, Tōru. Wake up.”

Oikawa was woken by a harsh tapping at his cheek; he batted the intrusion away, flinching as the comfortable darkness of his chambers was flooded with the light of the morning. One of the things Oikawa hated most in the world was being woken like this, especially as unceremoniously as being _slapped_ awake – he was usually greeted by the elegant faces of his handmaids or the pretty voices of his stewards, not this.

When he finally managed to pry open his eyes against the glare of the sun filtering through the eastern window, Oikawa found himself face-to-face with Matsukawa, who was leaning over the edge of his bed with his hands tucked neatly into his kimono.

“What are you doing?” Oikawa groaned; when he attempted to roll over and bury his face in the pillows, Matsukawa reached out and roughly held him in place. There was a curious fire to his eyes, a well-hidden excitement that Oikawa could only just see.

“You are in trouble,” Matsukawa said, and even his voice trembled. Something had happened – but what? Oikawa sat up, his ears keen and listening; in the distance he could hear the loud murmur of voices, and from the window of his chambers overlooking the plaza he could hear shouts and the beating of hooves. Flinging off his covers, the emperor strode to the window and leaned out of it, the tousled mess of his hair ruffled by the early morning breeze. Indeed, there was a company of horsemen and samurai gathered about the lip of the bridge to the palace. They were disorganised – Matsukawa’s own men, most likely – which struck Oikawa as very odd.

“What’s going on?” he demanded, catching the arm of one of his maids to help him dress. She spoke not a word as she helped him from his clothes, putting up with his frustrated grunts as he struggled to stuff himself into a heavy silk kimono, and after donning a heavy cloak of forest green and gold, he approached Matsukawa.

The man smiled down at him, and though his smile was thin it was decidedly excited, just as his eyes and his voice had been.

“Issei, tell me before I explode of curiosity.”

Matsukawa, however, merely beckoned to the emperor with a long hand, and holding open the door he escorted Oikawa down the hall, away from his chambers and towards the entrance hall of the palace. As they walked – their pace brisk, even for Matsukawa’s long, gangly legs – Matsukawa began to speak.

“My, Tōru, you’ve gone and gotten yourself into a spot of trouble.”

Oikawa rolled his eyes as they began their descent down a narrow flight of stairs, his long cloak trailing behind him with a whisper. “Trouble? What more could I possibly have done to sully the court’s opinion of me?”

Matsukawa eyed him amusedly, but as they reached the landing he fisted his hand in the front of Oikawa’s kimono, stopping him dead in his tracks. “Tōru, listen to me. You have usurped this court of everything it once was – you gave yourself a surname when you know full well that emperors have none, and you bring people to and from the palace as you please – and now there is a man on his knees bleeding all over the chamberlain’s new carpet.” He released Oikawa and let the emperor rock back, sucking on the inside of his cheek with displeasure. They started off again at a steady pace, Matsukawa’s countenance darker than it had been before. So – Oikawa was causing even his closest friend such distress? He felt victorious, in a way, knowing that he’d wreaked such havoc. But he was never meant to be a prince, much less the emperor of Japan. He wasn’t some kind of bird to be kept in a cage, gilded as it was.

“So you managed to bring him to me?” Oikawa asked as they reached the front hall of the palace. Instead of replying Matsukawa merely bowed deeply, gesturing Oikawa through the doors. The emperor, sighing and tucking his hands into his kimono, billowed through the doors in folds of blue and green and gold, his hair still messy and his face still creased from sleep.

Matsukawa’s accusation – that of a bleeding man brought to his knees – had, to Oikawa, seemed almost unbelievable. But now he saw it to be true, and he quite honestly believed he had never seen anything as beautiful in his life as the sight of a mountainous man bound in shackles and bleeding from his scalp on his knees before him.

Ushijima Wakatoshi was displayed like an art piece, placed in the very centre of the hall. Between the folds of his cotton yukata was a slip of his thigh, which gave Oikawa a very unprecedented and pleasing view of the hard muscle and dark skin. The yukata Oikawa remembered as being starched and clean was now marked with blood and dirt and grass, stained with the evidence of an altercation. The emperor was aware of Matsukawa standing behind him, radiating with complacency and smiling like a cat. Around Ushijima was a number of imperial staff and guests from the various _damiyo_ families; Oikawa paid no attention to them as he came to a stop before the kneeling man, tilting his head owlishly to the side as he gazed down upon him.

“Ushijima-san,” Oikawa greeted him mockingly. “How nice of you to visit.”

Ushijima raised his eyes to meet Oikawa’s, and suddenly the emperor’s entire body felt as though it had caught on fire.

“Tōru!” came a hair-raising shriek, interrupting Ushijima before he could reply. Oikawa bristled at the voice and turned in time to see his chamberlain approaching him, so angry that his face was very nearly purple.

“Good morning, chamberlain. Pleasant weather today, don’t you agree?”

“Don’t you give me that!” Irihata barked, jabbing a bony finger in the emperor’s direction. “What is the meaning of _this_?” Oikawa, amused, watched the chamberlain’s wild gestures. _Oh, my. Issei was right. I am in trouble._

But Oikawa had no trouble reminding himself that he was, in the end, the emperor.

“This? Oh – him?” Oikawa turned his gaze from Irihata to Ushijima, who still knelt stooped upon the floor. “A rather unexpected sight, I know. But you see, Irihata-san, there’s a perfectly good explanation for this!”

Irihata fixed his furious gaze on Oikawa, his shrivelled face drawn up so tight it reminded Oikawa of a pickled plum. “Explanation? Which would be _what_ , exactly?”

The pleasant smile froze on Oikawa’s face. “Fraudulent business.” He could practically feel Ushijima bristle at his lie. “I sent men to deliver his payment for repairing a door yesterday, and, well… I thought it would be best for me to exact his punishment myself.”

Irihata began talking again, waving his arms about, but Oikawa had stopped listening. Instead he gazed over his shoulder at Ushijima, who returned it with a look of absolute incredulity. Oikawa was, on one hand, pleased to have elicited a reaction from such a stoic person, even one as mild as disbelief, but it lasted only a fraction of a moment before it was gone, once again concealed by that infuriatingly unreadable expression. A rivulet of blood tracked its way down Ushijima’s face, clinging to his jaw and dripping from his chin. Oikawa licked his lips.

“…and it takes _weeks_ to arrange something like this!” Finally, just as Oikawa turned his attention back to Irihata, the chamberlain drew in a deep breath. The bulbous end of his nose was red, which was really rather funny, but Oikawa knew better than to laugh at a time like this. He leaned in a little, his face smooth and neutral, lips turned up into the ghost of a smile.

“Chamberlain,” he began softly. “You are my mentor and my confidant. But you must remember who is the emperor, and whose decisions these are to make. I am not the same as my father was, you must understand, and while I am alive things are to be as I like them.”

Irihata clenched his teeth and spared Ushijima a single, withering glare. “So be it,” he conceded eventually. “But I want no mess, do you understand me?”

Oikawa nodded pleasantly, his smile not once flinching in the face of the chamberlain’s discontent. With a huff, the old man turned on his heel, sparing the kneeling man one slit-eyed glance before heading back from whence he’d come.

“He can be so boring sometimes,” Oikawa mumbled mostly to himself before turning his attention fully back to Ushijima Wakatoshi, who was still staring at him. Oikawa found it a little unsettling.

“I quite like you like this,” he said to Ushijima; with delight he watched as the man’s heavy brow pulled tight, though what emotion it conveyed Oikawa wasn’t entirely sure. “All tied up and bloody, my, it’s rather attractive. You look like a kicked dog.” His laughter rang out about the hall, then, the bright peals of a bell, and he demurely raised his hand to cover his grin. Ushijima only continued to stare, his face refusing to shift a single muscle, nor to convey any emotion. It brought fury to the very core of Oikawa’s being, but hat anger he felt danced alongside his excitement, like a child in possession of a new toy. “Issei, did he give you much trouble?” While his body turned to face Matsukawa, his eyes lingered on the slip of Ushijima’s tongue as it darted from between his lips to swab at a bead of blood.

“Surprisingly he came rather easily,” Matsukawa admitted with a shrug. “Put up a good fight at first, but he was diplomatic, in the end.” His sharp face spread into a wry smile.

Oikawa couldn’t deny his surprise. When he had first seen Ushijima on his knees, bleeding and shackled, he’d entertained the thought of some kind of brawl between the huge man and Matsukawa’s men. But now he discovered that wasn’t the case; he was a little disappointed, but not entirely. His eyes blinked quickly back to Ushijima. _He’s not stupid._ “Is that so? A kicked dog, then, but an obedient one at least. Takahiro, bring him upstairs.” The emperor gestured to another tall young man who leant against the wall by the door, apart from the tightly-pressed throng of onlookers. Hanamaki Takahiro bowed his head, pale hair glinting in the light, and pushed himself away from his purchase.

“Not downstairs, your Grace?” he asked, beginning through the crowd lazily, parting them with a few well-timed jabs of his elbows. “I could easily have him put in prison for a little while, if you like.” When he breached the innermost ring of onlookers and approached Ushijima, Oikawa saw that he was wearing no shoes, his toes pale and long beneath the hem of his kimono.

“No, upstairs. He’s no used to me rotting away in a prison cell.” Oikawa smiled as he spoke, lifting and dropping his shoulders in a way that made his cloak glitter gold. “I just wish to speak to him.”

He’s sure nobody believes him – after all, Oikawa Tōru never wants to just _speak_. He’s always been the kind of person to have ulterior motives, some sort of hatching plan, and it had been much the same ever since he was a child. Perhaps that was the root of his lack of close friends; he never felt guilty about stepping on the toes of others to reach his own goals, though, and his most trusted companions were those who aspired to much the same things he did. Hanamaki bowed all the same.

“Very well, then.” He gestured to a number of guards who stood by the door – palace guards, dressed in armour that was more ornamental than anything, a far cry from the samurai Oikawa had seen in the plaza earlier. Ushijima was hauled to his feet like a sack of rice, handled roughly as he was taken out of the hall. Oikawa waved his fingers in a mocking farewell.

“Tōru, watch yourself,” Matsukawa murmured to him as the emperor tucked his hands together and began back the way they’d come. “You’re playing with fire.”

“Fire? Issei, that man is not dangerous. Not to me, at least – do you forget? There are eyes and ears everywhere here, in the walls, the ceilings – if he should so much as lay a _single_ finger on me, his head will be off his shoulders before he even knows what’s happened.”

Matsukawa looked at him incredulously, his dark eyes hooded, and for a few moments he didn’t reply. “You believe yourself above surprises, your Grace,” he said eventually, “But you ought to watch your back all the same.”

“Is that a threat, Issei?” Oikawa’s tone was tight through his knifelike smile.

“It is merely advice, your Grace,” Issei assured him. He appraised Oikawa’s face briefly before grabbing his upper arm and pulling him in so close that Oikawa could smell the faint scent of hallucinogens and perfume wafting from his clothes. “There was a girl – Hitoka, I believe her name was. If you find yourself in trouble I believe she would become somewhat of a reliable ransom; either that, or he will tear you limb from limb at the mere mention of her name. Take that as you will.” Before Oikawa could reply, Matsukawa released him; glancing over the emperor’s shoulder he bowed floridly enough for Oikawa to detect irony, and with a tap of his heel he swept down the corridor in a flurry of pine and opium.

“The room has been readied,” Hanamaki said loudly, dispelling the sudden tenseness in the air. His feet were still bare, Oikawa noticed with amusement, and the chill of the wood beneath his soles didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest.

“Did you clean him up?” Oikawa demanded as he let Hanamaki lead him up the sprawling pine staircase. “I don’t want that man bleeding all over my carpets.”

“Yes.” Hanamaki, stopping so suddenly Oikawa almost walked into his back, pushed open a tall shoji door and held it open with a slight incline of his head. “He is ready for you.”

Oikawa swept into the room, his shoulders thrown back and chin raised. He loved making stately entrances like that – he knew they inspired fear and nervousness. But Ushijima, sat at the low table dressed in a clean yukata of a deep navy blue, watched him with neither fear nor nervousness. His face was impossible to read, as hard and blank as a slab of wood.

The door shut behind him.

“Leave us.” Oikawa motioned to the guards to leave; they did so with the muted clank of armour and pikes. When they were gone Oikawa rounded the table, looking down his nose at the man sat before him. He didn’t sit down.

“Are you afraid?” Ushijima asked. When he spoke Oikawa caught a glimpse of a deep cut on his lip and blood still caked in one of his eyebrows. He also caught a glimpse of what he supposed to be amusement, and he hastened to flatten out his expression lest it give him away.

“Afraid?” Oikawa asked, smiling wide and catlike at the man as he lowered himself down to sit on the floor cushion. “Hardly. Why would I be afraid of you?”

“I could snap you in half like a twig.”

A shudder ran through Oikawa’s body – one he was only just able to conceal. Ushijima didn’t _look_ like he was about to leap across the table and strangle Oikawa to death, but the young emperor had learned a long time ago that some things are not always what they seem.

“You say that now and yet you didn’t raise a single finger to defend yourself against my men?” Oikawa tilted his head to the side and leaned it against his hand in wonder. “A strange creature you are.”

“No, I didn’t.” Was that a glimmer of a smile Oikawa saw? Perhaps. Even with his quick eyes he couldn’t be sure. Ushijima’s face was a swimming pool of enigma that caused the emperor’s gut to clench in cold fury.

“Why not?” Oikawa’s voice is cutting, and yet somehow impossibly smooth. His eyes are drawn to the carpenter’s split lip as his tongue darts out to swiftly wipe over the wound.

“That is my own business.”

Oikawa took his lower lip between his teeth and began to chew. It was a bad habit, he knew, rendering his lips chapped and red, and as a child his mother had constantly chided him against it. Naturally, he hadn’t listened.

Drawing his finger across the dark wood before him, Oikawa leaned his head against his hand and feigned nonchalance as best he could. Slowly, as he mulled over everything Matsukawa had told him in the short time hence, things began to fall into place. “Say,” he mused, rising as fluidly as steam, rounding the table and placing a foot squarely against Ushijima’s chest – part of him was angry that Ushijima didn’t put up any resistance when he shoved him down onto the floor, but another part of him understood why he was complying. Fear would have perhaps tempered his attitude, or even the annoyance prickling over his skin, but there was no fear in Ushijima’s face. Oikawa couldn’t help but sneer as he drew apart the slit in his robes, dropping to his knees and then to his haunches, straddling Ushijima’s midsection. He could feel the muscle ripple beneath him and allowed himself a quick glance at the hands that lay prone on either side of the carpenter’s torso – they were brown and strong, just like the rest of him.

The emperor searched his face desperately for something, _anything_ – fear, anxiety, confusion – but there was nothing. With a small huff of malcontent, Oikawa reached into a deep pocket of his kimono and drew out a small bamboo sheath in which he held a small, nondescript knife. He thought that teasing the blade across Ushijima’s skin – his jaw, his throat – might make something flicker to light in those eyes of his.

But it didn’t.

“Are you really not afraid?” Oikawa asked, and this time his voice was low with gravity.

“I am not, your Grace.”

Oikawa pressed the lip of the blade a little harder against the underside of Ushijima’s chin; a bead of blood glittered against the steel. “This Hitoka, then, who is she? _Hitoka_ is such a lovely name. She sounds like a little peach.”

Suddenly Oikawa’s hand was torn away from Ushijima’s throat so quickly he was surprised he didn’t shear right through the skin; Ushijima’s hand was crushing his wrist, gripping him so tightly that the knife fell from his hands and landed with a muted _thud_ against the tatami mats.

“Oh, it would appear that I have struck a cord.” Oikawa grinned from ear to ear. “Don’t worry, I shan’t do anything to her. I only want to hear your reasons.”

Slowly, Ushijima released his wrist, allowing the emperor to lever himself back into his own space on the other side of the table before sitting up and smoothing down his rumpled hair. Something in his face had changed, but Oikawa couldn’t tell if it was fear or suspicion. He cradled his chin in both hands, his face graced with a smile as he waited expectantly of Ushijima to speak.

“My… my sister. Hitoka is the name of my sister.” Ushijima licked his lips nervously. “When your soldiers came to my town they made to arrest her under charges I knew to be false. Our parents impressed upon us strong values of family loyalty, you understand, and so when I failed to overpower your men I agreed to go in her place.”

“I bet she was very relieved,” Oikawa purred, well aware of his own notoriety.

“She was not. She begged me not to go to you, as she seemed to make some prediction of my fate. But I had no other choice.” _And now I am here_ , his eyes said, and Oikawa smiled.

“How touching.” Oikawa tilted his head mockingly, bittered by Ushijima’s obvious love and reverence for his sister, right to the point where he would knowingly put his own life in peril to preserve hers. Even so, Oikawa couldn’t help but be thrown by Ushijima’s confidence; he did not falter when he spoke, he remained steady and straight-backed the entire time, not once shying away or stammering. _What strength of character,_ Oikawa thought perhaps a little sourly. He liked this man less and less. And yet he was unequivocally intrigued by him, and the more he came to dislike him, the less willing he was to let him go. “No doubt that’s a pretty little tale. Say, Ushijima-san, how about we strike a deal? After all, I am a master diplomat.” He added the last part jokingly, mostly to himself.

Ushijima’s jaw tightened, the muscles flexing under the skin as his pupils drew tight and small. “Go on.”

“You stay here and cooperate with me,” Oikawa purred as he drew his long fingers over the tabletop in slow, seductive circles. “Or I send you back to your stinking little town and take your sister in your stead.”

He swore he heard a stutter in Ushijima’s breath.

The man inclined his head, then, stooping his huge shoulders until his forehead kissed the mats, hands placed beside his head and the material of his yukata crinkling between his shoulder blades. “It is a pleasure to be in your service, your Grace.”

Oikawa had never heard a bigger lie in his life.


	3. The Third Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey dudes sorry the updates will be super spaced out but im just so busy i'm up to my eyeballs in stuff rn

Oikawa spent the night pacing the length of his chambers.

His eyes followed the polished wood beneath the soft white fabric of his _tabi_ -clad feet. His feet didn’t make a sound as he walked; the only noise came through the thrown-open window overlooking the court outside, which was alive at all hours of the day.

He paused in the pool of moonlight cast through the window frame, taking the leisure of leaning against it and gazing out over the soft glow of the surrounding city. It had grown so quickly over recent years – when his father had been in power (back when he was just a child), the ostentatious buildings that comprised the imperial palace had been abutted by a cluster of neat streets. Oikawa remembered leaning out the very same window with outstretched arms, the sleeves of his kimono blowing in the breeze, the tiled rooves of the city curling and swooping like the waves that graced the coastline. He’d never seen the ocean, of course – he’d only seen prints of it, but when the sun gleamed against the blue tinges of the roof tiles he swore that was what the sea must look like.

There were handfuls of samurai in the courtyard, some sat astride horses and standing as still and silent as statues; others were talking amongst themselves, others merely passing passage. Ladies, lords returning from their affairs with courtesans – Oikawa had no interest in it, and yet he yearned to have the freedom to sneak about as he wished as well.

But he had bigger issues to think about than sneaking around. After all, he had Matsukawa to do that for him – and so far he had done his job perfectly. After Oikawa had sat with Ushijima earlier in the evening, he’d had the man shown to a set of smaller rooms that he would be able to stay in until the emperor decided on his fate, something the chamberlain would surely be irate about when he found out. He’d never appreciated Oikawa’s games, especially not when they concerned Oikawa parading the townspeople around the palace. But there was little else that gave Oikawa quite as much glee as seeing the chamberlain’s face grow puckered and purple with rage.

“Ah,” he sighed, turning and leaning against the window so the breeze washed over the back of his neck. The room was dark, all dancing shadows and chipped dovetails, eerie silhouettes dancing over the pale plaster walls. What to do with Ushijima? Oikawa was already annoyed by the man just _being_ here, and that annoyance sparked something a little mad inside him. _Well,_ Oikawa reasoned, _I suppose he’ll turn out just like all the others. A pity._ Except it wasn’t really a pity.

Not to Oikawa, at least.

A shiver wracked up his spine; dropping back, he reached to lift the heavy weight of his haori up and over his shoulders, pulling it tight about himself.

Before his father had come to power, there had _been_ no power, not for the emperors. The power lay in the hands of the shogunate. It had been Oikawa’s father that had taken it all back, who had let Oikawa dwell in the shadows of the imperial courtroom, who had instilled within him the desire to make a name for himself and to make a nation to himself. He’d taken _all_ of it back.

Oikawa wasn’t going to let it all slip now. He wasn’t going to let it all _go_ , not now, not ever. He’d almost let himself cave into something other than the need to run the country before, and that had ended in a bloody, grievous mess, something he’d sworn was never to be repeated.

He rubbed his hands up and over his face in exasperation. Something dangerous was wavering inside him – it was interest. It was an unmistakeable interest in that _damned_ carpenter, though what it was that Oikawa was particularly interested in wasn’t something he could put his finger on.

 

He barely got a second of sleep.

“You look like you just rolled out of a cave,” Matsukawa mused when Oikawa flung open the doors of his chambers the next morning. Oikawa glared at him sharply, smoothing down his rumpled hair with the palms of his hands. “You didn’t sleep, did you?” Of course – Matsukawa was no stranger to Oikawa’s antics, and knew perhaps better than anybody that Oikawa was an insomniac when it came to stress.

“It’s rude to loiter outside other people’s bedrooms,” Oikawa snapped in response, hoping Matsukawa didn’t notice his clumsy sidestepping of the question. His feet were pale and long from where they lay bare against the threshold, cuffed by the soft white silk of his trousers.

“Would you care to take a walk with me?”

Oikawa let out a heavy, relieved breath.

He rarely got a chance to leave the palace and escape into the grounds; only when he was accompanied by a posse of advisors and guards was he allowed. But somehow Matsukawa managed to find ways to sneak him out every now and again, for which Oikawa was eternally grateful.

After the emperor had pulled on his shoes and his cloak, he followed Matsukawa down the scroll-lined hallway and to a narrow, sloping stairway used exclusively by the domestic staff. As a child he’d used to skitter up and down stairways like these, keeping out of sight and forever stressing the palace servants when they found him sidling down one narrow hallway or another.

It kept them hidden from official eyes as they slipped out a stout little archway and into a small, stone courtyard. It was bracketed by high walls of mortared stone, the sunlight screened by the ivy that tumbled from the walls of the palace above, casting dappled green sunlight over the flagstones enough to make it appear as though Oikawa was walking on the ocean itself. Oikawa closed his eyes for a moment and drew in a long, deep breath, taking in the coolness of the air and the freshness of the outside world deep into his lungs.

“Perhaps I should run away,” he remarked coyly as Matsukawa held aside the ivy for Oikawa to pass beneath. “Commit myself to the forest and become a hermit. Or a monk, maybe.”

Matsukawa snorted. “You? Lead the life of a monk? I could think of nothing more ridiculous.”

Oikawa pouted and looked away with a sniff; Matsukawa was right, of course. Oikawa giving himself to monkhood would be like trying to teach a fish to live out of water.

As they rounded another set of high, tile-crested walls, Oikawa suddenly found the palace grounds sprawling before him. The sky arched pale and blue overhead, the morning not yet deep enough to fully render it in its true glory; larks dipped and swooped over the crowns of the trees, their song reaching high and shrill into the early morning air.

“So,” Matsukawa began as the two began to walk down a narrow path of packed sand, passing between rock gardens and meticulously groomed lawns. Here they would remain unseen, screened by the wall of juniper trees that had been planted back when Oikawa was still an infant. Their waxy leaves glimmered in the sun and Oikawa couldn’t help but pluck one from its branch and turn it in his fingers. “Would you like to tell me the root of your concern, or should I guess?” By _guess_ , of course, Matsukawa meant that he would tell Oikawa the exact cause of his stress, because Matsukawa already knew. It wasn’t hard for him to come to a conclusion, after all. He’d known Oikawa far too long for that.

Oikawa tucked his hands deep into the pockets of his coat, the material suddenly so much rougher against his skin than it had been before. “He… irritates me.”

“Your little carpenter?”

Oikawa hummed and nodded, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground beneath him. “He didn’t want to do it.”

Matsukawa chuckled. Their pace was leisurely, the breeze licking up the backs of their necks. “And for the first time in his life, Japan’s lovely emperor was denied a lover. My, if that isn’t the stuff of legends.”

Oikawa scoffed; as bitter as he was, even he knew that was a stretch. “Issei, is it wrong of me to say that I’ve never wanted to stab someone so much in my entire life?”

“You know that I think what you’re doing is wrong, so it’s inconsequential. But what _I_ don’t understand is why he’s affecting you this much – he seems harmless. The silent-but-determined type.”

“Precisely. But Issei – there’s fire inside him I can’t get at. _That_ is what irritates me. That and… actually, his whole existence annoys me.” Oikawa waved his hand in dismissal, huffing through his nose. “Either way, it won’t matter soon. I’ll take what I want tonight and it will be all over tomorrow morning.”

Matsukawa’s gaze was pitying; he made sure Oikawa didn’t see it, though. He knew that there was little Oikawa hated more than being pitied. “It’s not too late to stop this.”

“If I’d wanted a lecture on ethics I would have asked my mother, and last time I checked, you were not her.” The emperor’s smile was sweet to the point of sickliness.

Resigned, Matsukawa merely sighed. “Shall I have him brought to your rooms this evening, then?”

“Yes.” Oikawa shuddered in distaste. “But for now let’s not think about this – I haven’t been out here for weeks. I’d rather not sour anything.”

 _Sour,_ Matsukawa thought incredulously, but he let Oikawa have his silence.

The emperor loved to wreak havoc on those he disliked – unluckily for the palace staff, Oikawa disliked almost everybody he was forced to live with, which often led him into doing things he _definitely_ should not do. They were never serious things, but they compounded and compounded until Irihata would insist on punishment; however, since the emperor had gained back the power from the shogunate, there was nothing anybody could do.

Oikawa took up a stick and drew a series of wobbly lined through one of the displays of raked sand; he’d kick aside the stones around the bonsai garden and skip stones across the ponds. Most of it was just juvenile fun – Oikawa had never gotten the chance to be a child, not really, so even in his young adulthood he took every opportunity he had to relive the days of his childhood.

This was, of course, all done under Matsukawa’s careful eye, and while Oikawa knew the expectations of those around him he had a trouble keeping his boundaries. His history of cold-blooded murder was one such discrepancy on an otherwise clean record.

“Nobody will punish me,” Oikawa insisted with a laugh after Matsukawa expressed his concern; Oikawa was sat with his trousers hiked up to his knees and his legs hanging into one of the wide, glittering ponds of the palace grounds, his toes dipping between the stalks of the water lilies.

“How is that?” Matsukawa asked from the shade of one of the maple trees. “How is it that you have placed yourself so irrevocably at the top of the political hierarchy again?”

“War,” Oikawa shrugged. “I won my first war when I was only seventeen. That’s what concreted my father’s efforts. I proved to be just as useful on the field as I was behind the planning table, and since Japan needed a strong military leader I decided to take that role upon myself. There was no use for the shogunate.”

Matsukawa hadn’t been there during those years; he’d been in the north of the country in pursuit of a spy from one of the smaller islands off the coast, a chase that had taken him years and years and had blinded him to the victories being executed by the young emperor in the south. But while Oikawa enjoyed spinning tales, the genuineness of his voice was not to be mistaken.

They returned to the palace around midday to be met by Irihata, who was on the verge of breaking down completely.

“You can’t just go _missing_ like that!” he barked, but he was too overcome by relief to be truly angry.

For the rest of the afternoon Oikawa was drowned in administration and meetings, concerning himself with the push and pull of power between him and the shogunate. But his mind often wandered ahead, wondering after the promises of what might be in store that evening when Ushijima was brought to his rooms. Excitement tingled in his belly, offsetting the boredom he was practically drowning in. His fingers could barely keep still; they itched on his thigh and made him so restless that eventually his advisors sunk their heads in resignation and told him to go outside to wear off all his nervous energy. Oikawa merely smiled at them, hid his hands, and told them to continue. He wanted to get this over and done with as soon as possible.

“Your little toy has been prepared,” Hanamaki told him flatly when Oikawa was ascending the staircase to the upper storey of the palace. The emperor jumped, almost tripping, not having heard Hanamaki approach. Oikawa, once he’d calmed his fluttering nerves, smiled easily at Hanamaki and began on his way again. Hanamaki fell into step beside him easily, his long legs carrying him along like a cloud on a breeze.

“You treat this like a game,” Oikawa told him, tugging at the heavy folds of his haori as they entered into the quiet confines of the imperial quarters. Hanamaki snorted through his nose, tipping his head back slightly as though trying not to laugh.

“And you don’t?”

Oikawa’s eyes hardened and he looked away, over towards the windows lining the westernmost wall of the corridor. “No.”

Hanamaki slowed to a stop. He watched after Oikawa as he continued on for a few steps, unaware that his friend had stopped walking; he didn’t turn, though. Hanamaki regarded him carefully. “Do you think Hajime would have wanted this?” he asked, his voice so impossibly low that it was a surprise Oikawa heard it at all. When the emperor finally glanced back at him his eyes were filled with the coldest fire Hanamaki had ever seen.

“It doesn’t matter what he would have wanted,” Oikawa gritted out. His fingers grew white as they clenched at the fabric around his midsection, and no matter how well Oikawa tried to mask himself, Hanamaki saw through it every single time. “This is about what _I_ want, Takahiro. You oughtn’t ask questions.”

“I understand that I’m bound to your service,” Hanamaki said as he approached the emperor, drawing in close so he could lower his voice to little more than a whisper. “But as your _friend_ , Tōru, I say you should stop this.”

Oikawa, for once, did not smile. “No.” The words come out soft and murderous and Hanamaki has to supress a shiver.

Whatever turn their conversation might have taken was interrupted by the appearance of a maid, her sweeping robes dragging in bursts of colours along behind her. Her painted face was upturned towards the emperor, her eyes half-closed and bright scarlet lips parted only slightly as she dipped into a bow. She did not speak – after all, women were given no room for speech, much less a _maid_. They were trained to express all they needed to through their body language.

“That’s my cue, I believe.” Oikawa folded his haori over his hands and offered Hanamaki a thin but rueful smile. Hanamaki bowed, watching as Oikawa let himself be led away by the maid.

Oikawa was glad for the silence. He followed the maid along the corridor; it was so silent Oikawa felt as though he was suspended in space. It was the time of evening just after nightfall when the birds fell quiet, a small bracket of complete and utter stillness where darkness chilled to the bone and the entire world held its breath. It was Oikawa’s favourite time of day, as unnerving as it was.

The woman bowed her head at the doorway to his chambers, her delicate white hands folded inside the bell-sleeves of her kimono. _Pretty_ , Oikawa thought, though more like a statue or a fine piece of art. After all, that’s all they were, really – ornaments.

He chose not to dwell on it; he slid the door shut behind him, letting out a long sigh as he let his coat fall to the floor in a puddle at his feet. It was nice to be in the privacy of his own chambers again, especially after the chaos of his day. And there was a promised gift waiting somewhere within, too – Oikawa’s gut clenched in anticipation.

“Well, fancy seeing you here,” he said lightly as he rounded the paper screens and saw Ushijima sat like a doll at the low table. He’d grown used to seeing him sat like this, with his fists upon his knees and his head slightly bowed as though weighed down with a yoke. “You know, I’m quite beginning to like that colour on you.” He nodded to the deep, rich navy cloak thrown over Ushijima’s mountainous shoulders; the man didn’t react. He only stared at the empty surface of the table, gaze as unflinching as ever.

“Why did you call me here?” Ushijima asked eventually, still not looking up.

“Why? You know why. You may act dense, but you aren’t ignorant.”

Ushijima, finally, raised his eyes. They were so dark in the half-light that they look almost black, and Oikawa felt the tips of his fingers grow a little cold. Ushijima said nothing, nor did he move, and his mere silence grated against Oikawa’s nerves. But he wouldn’t let him win.

“Fine.” The emperor cast himself down onto the wide, low bed, letting himself sink into the fragrant sheets with a soft sigh of contentment. “Tell me about yourself.” He folded his arms and rests his head upon them, fixing Ushijima with sleepy eyes, his eyelashes fanning out over his cheeks.

Ushijima, Oikawa is pleased to see, was shocked. His eyebrows rose and his eyes widened just a fraction, but for Oikawa it was enough. He tried to hide his smirk, but from the way Ushijima’s face darkened, he supposed he didn’t quite manage.

“I beg your pardon?”

Oikawa flapped a hand. “You know – your family, your village. How about your sister? Hitoka, wasn’t it?”

“Ah…” Ushijima didn’t reply. At least not at first, anyway; the candles had burned low in their sconces, dripping wax glimmering in pools and the flames casting shadows that danced across the walls. The room was full of jutting angles and deep nooks and during the night the whole place grew alive with what Oikawa had always thought to be spirits; instead of being scared of them, though, he revelled in their company. They made him feel a little less alone.

It was glaringly obvious – to Oikawa at least – that Ushijima didn’t want to tell him _anything_ about himself. He was well aware that his life hung in the balance, that Oikawa could have him killed with a mere nod of his head. Was he afraid? Oikawa hoped so. He loved seeing fear in the eyes of those who beheld him, and for that some called him cruel, but Oikawa didn’t really assign it to cruelty. It just gave him a thrill he found nowhere else. Oikawa understood Ushijima’s reluctance, but that didn’t mean he was going to accept it.

“My… my village is in the mountains. It is rather small, but quiet and cool when it rains.” Ushijima’s voice was melodic and deep as he begins; curiously, Oikawa noticed a different lilt to it than when he spoke normally. Something musical, entrancing, like the sound of rustling paper or the whisper of dust over glass.

And so he spoke. Ushijima spoke in his harmonic, deep voice, keeping his gaze as gentle and screened as ever. He was calming to look at, Oikawa thought, like a giant sat against the crest of a hill or the late afternoon sun. His voice, too, was warm, and Oikawa found himself closing his eyes and letting himself bask in the sound just as he would bask in the sun.

What was it about this man that made Oikawa want to fall asleep? What was it that made him feel like he was sinking into a warm bath or giving himself over to the embrace of the forest? There was something, _something_ , but Oikawa didn’t know what it was.

Eventually Ushijima finished telling Oikawa about the rolling hills of his home, of the rice paddies and the temples, his voice waning out just as the candles began to burn down to the ends of their wicks. But Oikawa didn’t want him to stop talking.

“Would you do me a favour?” he asked, his voice slurred with sleepiness. Ushijima blinked slowly at him.

“Of course.”

“Tell me a story.”

Ushijima shifted a little where he sat. “What story would you like me to tell?”

Again Oikawa flapped a hand, sighing and snuggling down further into the warmth of his covers. “I don’t care. Whatever you like.” _Just let me listen to you for a while longer._

Ushijima wasn’t sure what Oikawa wanted. He knew what he’d come here for, and yet here he sat with the emperor sprawled out in a sleepy daze on his bed asking for a story. Not that Ushijima was about to explain – the more distracted he could make Oikawa, the better.

He told Oikawa a story that his mother used to tell to the village children. Ushijima wrapped his words, crafting them into long bamboo stalks and glistening pools; he laid them as scales on the backs of the koi fish, arranged them as the petals of lotus flowers and peonies bursting under the falling rain. Each word he spoke lay upon the last and syllable by syllable he began to build a world around the emperor until Oikawa was only half aware of the world around him. If he were to try hard enough he could probably convince himself that he wasn’t lying upon his bed, but instead in the middle of the field Ushijima was speaking of, or in the middle of a lotus flower.

Oikawa didn’t realise when he fell asleep; Ushijima’s words carried across into his dreams and everything became suddenly vivid. He could taste everything, feel everything, _hear_ everything. He didn’t notice, and he didn’t care.

The candles had almost completely burned out by the time Ushijima realised Oikawa had fallen asleep. The room was filled with the emperor’s soft breathing; his hair fluttered with each passage of his breath, and Ushijima lifted himself as silently as he could to approach him.

He was beautiful like this. Ushijima could have saved himself – he could have crushed Oikawa’s slender throat in his hands and escaped with his life. He knew this. But he didn’t do it. Instead Ushijima lifted the emperor into his arms, turning down the bed and laying him down. How could he ever destroy something so beautiful?

Silence pressed close around him. Ushijima could barely tear himself away from Oikawa, from his elegant face and fragrant hair, from his long, white hands. It was as though a hand had fisted itself in Ushijima’s guts and was yanking him closer, aching, _begging_ for the man lying sleeping beneath him.

But he ignored it.

Ushijima drew away from the emperor, drawing in a breath and pulling his cloak tight around him. He could practically feel the eggshells beneath his feet.

He left the room swiftly, making sure the doors were firmly closed behind him. When he turned he saw a young, lanky man with a mop of black hair and a dark, stormy brow; he lounged against the wall of the corridor, eyes not once leaving him.

Ushijima merely bowed, tucked his hands into his pockets, and made his way back to the room he’d been given.


	4. The Fourth Night

Oikawa woke feeling as though he’d just been born. He hadn’t slept so well in years, it seems – for once his head didn’t hurt and his body didn’t ache, and for once he didn’t completely dread the day ahead. Because now he had his little gilded bird with his pretty, wordsmith tongue.

“Your breakfast has been prepared, my _Liege_ ,” Matsukawa drawled as he threw open the doors of the emperor’s chambers. He found Oikawa sitting in the deep window-seat basking like a cat in the early morning sun. “You need to eat something, Tōru, or else you’ll shrivel up into a prune.”

Oikawa didn’t open his eyes. He only let out a little _hmph_ and shrugged his shoulders. “Good. I’d quite like to be a prune, I think.”

Eventually, though, his stomach won over his will and he made his way into the brightly-lit sunroom towards the back of the palace, where he usually preferred to take his morning meals.

The room is huge – its ceiling is high and the walls were made of paper screens that let in the light whether open or closed. This morning they were flung open, letting in the gentle breeze that fluttered the ladies’ headdresses. Oikawa was eating on his own, as usual, and even though Matsukawa stood beside the door, the two of them made no contact outside the occasional glance.

Oikawa never had liked eating alone. The food was marvellous, all perfectly fried and crisp and seasoned. He loved the food, but he truly hated the solitude.

“Kindaichi!” he called suddenly, voice sharp and crisp as the light pooling over the tatami mats. The boy came scuttling over to him with cheeks pink with anticipation. “Go and get that lug… what’s his name?”

“Ushijima, your Grace?” Kindaichi said, then snaps his jaw shut. He’d spoken too quickly. Oikawa’s eyes cut into his – of course, news of the handsome, burly carpenter would spread like fire through a pine forest. Most of the court probably wondered why he was still alive.

Oikawa turned back to his food, feeling suddenly rather humiliated. “Yes, him. Hurry up. But make sure all those cuts ad bruises are cleaned up, I do not want to see them. They’re ugly.”

Kindaichi was more than happy to flee the room, the soft sounds of his footfalls fading into the distance. Oikawa’s appetite had suddenly disappeared and yet he ate still, unwilling to let anybody know of his anxiety.

It was ridiculous – since when had Oikawa been concerned about what other people said about him? He was the emperor of Japan – there were never any less than a dozen rumours in circulation about him at any one time. There never had been. He was so _used_ to being talk about, to being _speculated_ about… so why was this effecting him so deeply? Oikawa gnawed at the end of his chopstick and stared vacantly down at the table. He longed to look at Matsukawa, to glean some sort of grounding glance from him, but he didn’t. He sat with his nose buried in his rice for at least half an hour longer, and when he was full he still called for more food, desperate to do anything that would stop him from sitting static.

“Ushijima, your Grace.” A steward’s soft, muted voice broke the silence, and Oikawa looked up from his sashimi and towards the door. The doorway yawned huge and ornate, dwarfing even Ushijima who stood with one hand tucked into a neatly-pressed yukata. And yet even though he looked so small in the gaping space of the archway he still seemed huge, somehow, and Oikawa looked away when he caught himself staring.

“Ushiwaka, how nice of you to join me! Please, sit.” He gestured to the floor pillow beside him and called for a place to be set for the carpenter. While the maids bustled about to ready the place, Ushijima approached Oikawa without a word and folded himself with surprising grace down onto his knees. He bowed his head, his eyes closing briefly in respect, and then _finally_ Oikawa came under the scrutiny of that viscous, liquid gold that swam beneath the dark ridge of Ushijima’s brow.

Ushijima, Oikawa saw, ate very little. He didn’t look like the kind of person who would eat only a _little_ , indeed, but his bites remained small and unseasoned; he didn’t touch a single condiment, and ate only what the emperor brought to his plate.

“How do you eat at home?” Oikawa asked, his voice quiet as though he meant to speak only between themselves. Ushijima glances up at him with his eyes carefully guarded – again, he was reluctant to tell his potential executioner about his home life. But – again – he knew he had no choice but to comply. “Do you always have little nibbles like this? Nobody who eats this little gets this big – unless you’re a demon, of course.”

Ushijima chuckled. Oikawa was so shocked at the sound that he dropped the piece of fish he was trying to feed to Ushijima clean from between his chopsticks.

“Ah… no. I usually eat a lot. Mostly rice, though my sister often has me make more flavoursome dishes for her.”

Oikawa’s lip curled into a little smile. “You cook for her?”

It was as though Ushijima had only just realised he’d said too much – he’d revealed a piece of himself to the emperor that he’d meant to keep hidden. The muscles of his jaw worked as he ground his teeth, cursing himself, cursing Oikawa. Stiffly, he nods. “Yes.”

“Did you hear that, Issei?” Oikawa calls gleefully across the room to Matsukawa, who nods, his dark hair drifting into his eyes. “My, how special! A carpenter who _cooks_. Ushiwaka, you ought to cook me something. I want to taste it.” Oikawa’s voice rose like the colour on Ushijima’s neck; the carpenter shifted his collar to try and hide his flush, but Oikawa saw it all the same.

“I hardly think it is fitting,” Ushijima finally managed, his face turned away. Oikawa – who had risen to his knees – sat back down again and placed a piece of fried mackerel on Ushijima’s plate.

“Tell me a story, then.” Oikawa looked up through his lashes, smiling coyly – almost flirtily – at the man beside him. “Maybe then I can forgive you.”

Ushijima smiled, then. It was small and very thin, but it was a smile all the same, and something in Oikawa’s chest tightened when he saw it.

“No, your Grace,” the carpenter replied with a bow of his head. “I shall tell you stories only in the evening, should you be able to wait that long.”

Oikawa ground his teeth and huffed, averting his gaze, feeling very much like a roused-upon child. If anybody else had said something like that, Oikawa would have already cast them to the prisons. But the memory of Ushijima’s story from the night before still tingled at the back of his neck, and as much as he wanted to feel the heat of Ushijima’s blood on his fingers, he figured it would be a waste.

“Fine.”

In a way, he admired it. He knew Ushijima had to be nervous, at least, but he wasn’t showing any signs of fear. He _knew_ his life hung in the balance and yet he didn’t grovel or plead or threaten. He just sat there, terribly calm, with eyes that seemed to glide without moving, as gold and sharp as a hawk. It was intriguing – while, indeed, Oikawa had found himself infuriated by Ushijima’s impenetrability to his taunting, something about it was mystical. Like something out of a story book; he might as well have been one of the brave samurai knights from the stories Oikawa had read as a child.

Ushijima was the first person Oikawa had met that didn’t allow himself to be bent to his will.

“Is something the matter, your Grace?” Ushijima asked after a long pause; Oikawa realised a little too late that he’d been staring, chin still cradled in his hand and his lips curled into an almost imperceptible smile. The emperor cleared his throat, then, smoothing a hand down the front of his robes and averting his gaze to the – by now picked-apart – meal lay before them. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the sun begin to emerge from behind the pine windowframe, catching the brown of Ushijima’s hair and making it glow.

“Your Grace,” Matsukawa called, breaking the stillness between them. “It is time for you to meet with the shoguns.”

Oikawa glanced across at him; even though Oikawa looked towards the sound, Ushijima’s eyes remained firmly on the emperor’s face. Oikawa noticed it. Matsukawa noticed it, too.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” Oikawa told him with a voice that was strangely soft. Matsukawa nodded and cast a glance towards Ushijima as he turned to leave, and Oikawa only just caught the slight exhale as he disappeared from sight.

“Tonight,” Oikawa said to Ushijima as he rose, “I expect you to be in my room. I don’t want to waste any time. Understand?”

Ushijima pressed his lips together and nodded.

Oikawa, he noticed, smelled fragrant as he got to his feet. Perhaps it was his robes, washed in clear water and rubbed with lotus oils, or perhaps it was his skin – perhaps, Ushijima thought, he was merely sweet-smelling by nature. It reminded him curiously of the very early days of springtime.

He watched as he left, as the sun fell across the crown of his head with a gleam so strong it looked almost blond. The blue material of his haori was reflected against the skin of his neck, making it swim like the deepest reaches of the ocean, and Ushijima was suddenly struck with the urge to place his fingers against it.

“All right, you’re free to go.” Matsukawa had appeared unnoticed behind him, but Ushijima did not jump. Bowing his head in thank, he rose in silence. “You know what will await you if you try and escape. Just don’t leave the grounds and nobody will bother you, all right?”

Ushijima nodded solemnly. He knew that very well – more people than he could count had told him those same words, over and over, ever since he’d arrived. _To escape means to die._ He knew that even if he _were_ to escape, he’d be eventually caught – unless he waded out into the ocean and swam until he reached China.

Of course he missed his home; he missed the whispering hills and his sister’s soft singing as she sat at the loom on the veranda of their home. It was hardly as extravagant as the Imperial palace, but it was comfortable, and their village was more of a family than a community. His life had peace there. Tranquillity. And yet, somehow, he’d found himself an outcast, his taciturnity looked down upon by most of the residents. They tolerated him only because of his skill in carpentry and because of the beautiful work he procured. The one person who loved him was his sister, and he loved her in return. So as long as she remained safe, he didn’t care what happened to himself. Oikawa could cut the entrails from his body, but so long as Hitoka was safe, he didn’t care.

Ushijima was left to find his own way out to the palace grounds. The morning had matured, the sky a deeper blue than it had been before. The swallows he’d noticed dipping past the windows during their breakfast had retired to the juniper trees, leaving way instead for the crows and the hawks.

The palace grounds were nothing like his home. Where he was used to trees that leaned their crowns together he now found sprawling, open gardens, ponds that were clustered not with swamp weed but with lotus flowers and swans imported from Europe. Something about it made him think he’d stepped into another world.

And he couldn’t escape it.

As he walked, he thought. He though of trying to escape, of what he’d find on the other side of the high, moss-eaten walls if he did. Would he be able to navigate the city? How long would it take for the militia to catch him? Not long, most likely.

The sun grew hotter with each step he took. He made an effort to distance himself from the other people strolling the grounds, but from between the narrow stalks of bamboo he could see women as bright as flowers clustered beneath paper parasols, and men with balding heads sweating in the heat. The air was beginning to grow close and hot underneath the dark, heavy fabric of his coat, but he didn’t dare remove it.

Finally, just when the sun drew high in the sky, Ushijima came across a small orchard of peach trees. The soil was wet and the air was cool beneath them, all the other sounds of the palace melting away until all he could hear was the faint humming of the fruit flies and the rush of blood through his veins. He stopped before the tallest of the peach trees, its white blossoms shrivelled and bloated with underdeveloped fruit; he lay his palm to the bark and it was cool and rough beneath his hand – so different from the perfected interior of the palace and its grounds, and very much welcomed.

Ushijima was, to his credit, trying his best not to become overwhelmed by his imprisonment. He’d grow afraid for his sister, as he had no way of contacting her – what would become of her if he was executed? How would she survive?

He sunk down against the trunk of the tree and pressed his hands to his face. Beside him lay a bough that had fallen from the tree, the wood dried and yet still soft; drawing the small knife he’d kept in the pocket of his yukata, he turned the bough over and broke off one of the narrower offshoots, using the coiled strength in his arms to snap the wood until it was small enough for him to hold properly and resembled something he would find in his workshop at home.

Oddly enough, nobody had found the knife when they’d stripped him naked and dressed him. They didn’t find it after they forced him from his clothes for the second time and held him under that blisteringly cold water. It was a small knife made of folded steel, almost unnoticeable and yet undeniably strong. He’d had it since he was a boy.

He sat silentlty beneath the peach tree with his little block of wood in one hand and his knife in the other, soothing himself with the gentle curling motion of his fingers as he pushed the blade into the soft sylvan tissue. It gave easily beneath the lip of the blade, falling into the cradle of his lap in shaves. A rhythm was all he needed to calm his nerves and to settle his soul, and he found it in whittling aimless things like this, just as he’d done for Hitoka when she was still a baby.

Suddenly, a peach splatters a foot from where he sat, its skin exploding and spraying sweet juices all over the grass. Ushijima blinked, then tilted his head back to look up into the tree.

“I didn’t see you! Sorry!” Ushijima heard the voice – high and loud – come from between the leaves, obviously that of a child, and not a few moments later did a young boy no older than ten drop from the branches and land on his feet as nimbly as a cat. Between his teeth was a knife, and a canvas bag was slung over both shoulders.

Ushijima looked up at his sun-browned face and blinked.

“Say, what’re you doing there?” asked the boy after he took the knife from between his teeth and tucked it into his belt. He pointed an accusing finger at Ushijima’s hand and the little block of wood that was only just beginning to take shape.

“Whittling,” Ushijima replied.

“Oh.” The sun gleamed off the boy’s brown shoulders as he let the bag fall to the ground; it was full of ripe peaches unsullied by the bugs, and the boy reached into it, taking one in both hands. He sunk his teeth into one and offered the other to Ushijima, who took it cautiously. The skin was soft in his fingers. “My dad does that sometimes, when he’s not busy here.”

“He works here?” Ushijima asked before taking a bite from his peach. It tasted as good as it looked.

The boy nodded. “He’s one of the groundskeepers. I’m not really allowed to be here, but nobody minds. What are you making?”

“I’m not sure, yet.”

The boy sat down next to his bag and sucked up the peach juices running down his wrist. “Could ya make me a toy?”

Ushijima remembered being that young, once. He remembered being that nimble and having eyes that bright. “Well, I don’t see why not.”

The boy grins and throws the peach pit as far as he can between the trees. He then lays down on his stomach, his chin cradled in his hands as he watches Ushijima work. “You didn’t see a girl here, did you?” he asked when the tip of Ushijima’s knife was gouging the socket of an eye into the wood. Ushijima shook his head.

“I’m here!” another small voice cried, and a young girl swung out from behind one of the trees, the hem of her kimono tucked up around her hips to free her legs – they were long and muscly and as brown as the boy’s arms. “I was scared… I didn’t know who he was.” She didn’t approach them, hovering a distance away, until the boy sat up and beckoned her closer.

“It’s okay. Look, he’s making m e a toy. Maybe if you ask nicely he’ll make you one, too.”

The little girl must’ve been the boy’s sister. Their eyes were the same impenetrable black colour, their hair the same sleek, pale brown. They had to be.

“I can, if you’d like me to.”

The girl sank to her haunches beside her brother and peered shyly from beneath her fringe. She nodded.

When Ushijima had first ventured into the grounds he thought he’d wanted silence. But as he sat beneath the peach tree with the two children watching him, he found it even more calming; they didn’t say a word, their eyes forever fixed on his fingers. Soon there were three children instead of two; Ushijima made a third toy, a simple dragon, in companion to the horse and the swan he’d made for the other two. The girl fled giggling off into the trees and suddenly there were five children sitting in front of him. As they watched they began to ask questions, like how he made such fine little nicks, or how he got the wood to look so smooth. He answered all of them, though he didn’t allow any of them to hold his knife. But he teaches them with the boy’s peach knife, and soon the peach trees are consumed by the high shrieks of laughter from delighted children.

 

* * *

 

 

“What on Earth is that racket?” one of the lords asked, twisting a finger in his ear. Oikawa shrugged, turning his head to gaze out the window with an audible sigh of boredom.

“Probably those street rats come to rob the orchards again,” another one of them said, voice low with contempt. “Filthy little brats.” Then the advisor cleared his throat, turning his gaze from where it had wandered to the window. “Anyway – your Grace, thank you for taking the time to discuss these matters with us.”

Oikawa inclined his head and smiled politely. “A pleasure, as always.”

As the men began to file out of the room, Oikawa made to stand – but he found a heavy hand on his shoulder that kept him in place, forcing him to sit until the room was entirely empty. When the door finally closed, Irihata sat down beside Oikawa and put his hands together beneath his chin, his little eyes glinting from between the wrinkles in his face. “Tōru, we have found a woman. Shimizu Kiyoko – she’s clever and one of the most beautiful women in the country. The daughter of one of the nearby lords.”

“You ‘found’ a woman?” Oikawa asked, narrowing his eyes.

“A marriage would be immensely advantageous.”

Usually, Oikawa would have laughed. Whenever Irihata had approached him about marriage before he’d always thrown back his head and laughed; but this time his gaze fell to his hands and the breath left his body in one long, soft sigh.

“Shimizu, hm?” he asked. For some reason he pictured Ushijima’s mountainous shoulders instead of the gently curving shoulders of a woman. He didn’t know why.

“She is at the palace currently. We would like you to meet her.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

Oikawa sighed again and hauled himself to his feet. “Well, then, let’s go.”

Irihata was shocked by the emperor’s compliance. He’d gone into that room expecting Oikawa to throw a tantrum like he usually did when anyone approached him with the subject of marriage in mind – he couldn’t help but stare at Oikawa, his thinning eyebrows raised high upon his brow. Oikawa looked right back at him, unflinchingly, raising his hands in mock innocence.

“Don’t look so surprised,” he said, and his voice twittered with a laugh. “You’ll just get more wrinkles.”

Irihata swatted him upside the head as they made their way downstairs.

Shimizu Kiyoko was, indeed, beautiful. They found her sitting in one of the sunlit courtyards with her back to the palace, dressed in a beautiful green kimono that brought out the grey of her eyes. _Like a storm,_ Oikawa thought as he approached her, _waiting just on the horizon._ She looked perfect, like a doll, and she held herself to a standard even the wives of the most powerful lords could not reach. Her chest was bound tightly, her obi belt fanning up near her collarbones, the soft silk collar of her kimono showing the slender, swanlike line of her neck. She was as pale as the moon, her shoulders gently sloped, and when she smiled at him Oikawa couldn’t help but to smile back. He knew he was beautiful, but it was rare for him to meet someone else who could rival him.

“Shimizu-san,” he greeted her as he went to sit on the low stone bench beside her. She didn’t speak; she only bowed her head, her pitch-black hair gleaming in the sun. They sat there and spoke for a while, and while they were alone Oikawa knew they were being watched by many pairs of eyes. He was always being watched. Eventually the breeze bristled his skin and he stood, holding out a hand to her, which she gratefully took, and together they slipped from the courtyard and out onto the grounds.

“It’ll be more difficult for them to follow us here,” Oikawa explained as he led her through a low, unkempt alcove, following a path that led around the back of the palace. When he turned to look over his shoulder he saw that she was hiding a smile behind her hand. It’s only then that they allow their pace to slow to a stroll; Kiyoko opened the parasol she’d been carrying, the orange paper splashing colour over the heights of her cheeks.

Oikawa was always wary of the women Irihata encouraged him to marry. The ladies of the high court were encouraged to be vain from birth, believing that beauty was more valuable than complexity of character; Oikawa was not of the same views. He found most of the noblewomen inexcusably vapid – though by no fault of their own, he knew – and would rather have married a grasshopper (which he had rather ardently expressed to Irihata, much to his annoyance). But Kiyoko was different. She didn’t speak much, even though Oikawa asked her numerous questions. She was the one who ended up leading the conversation with astute observations concerning everything from the state of Japan’s political situation to the genus of tree growing in the orchard just over one of the high, lichened walls. She was clever, no doubt about it, and whenever her storm-grey eyes turned to fall on Oikawa’s face he was gripped by the uneasy feeling that she knew something about him that he’d rather keep secret. He didn’t know exactly what it was that she knew, though.

He stopped her in the shade of one of the maple trees growing alongside the back wall of the palace; laying a hand to her shoulder, Oikawa looked down at her, grimacing ruefully. “Shimizu-san, I don’t need to tell you that I have no wish to marry you – or get married at all, actually. I believe you are of the same sentiment.”

The hint of a smile flickered at her lips. “You’re more observant than you look,” she told him, and with that she resumed her stroll, twisting her parasol in her hands and leaving Oikawa to either fall into step beside her or be left behind. Her assertiveness was so refreshing that it almost endeared him. “But you’re right. I have no wished to be married myself, but you know that women have no say in these things.” Then, finally, she stopped, turning fully to face the emperor with eyes narrowed against the sun. “But you’re not turning me away, are you?”

“I’m not. I wish to become engaged, not because I love you, but because I believe I could tolerate you as an empress. Besides, it’ll get what feels like the entire country off our backs. You’ll be safe, we’ll both be content, and we won’t be pestered anymore. You’ll also be free to court whomever else you see fit so long as it doesn’t cause any trouble.”

Kiyoko murmured with laughter, pressing her fingers to her chin. “Japan truly does have a fair-minded emperor,” she said as though voicing a thought rather than speaking to him. “That’s an attractive contract. Are you in love with somebody?”

Oikawa smiled easy. “No. I merely want to get on with my life.”

She held out a hand to him. “As do I.”

 

The stewards found them soon enough, and with a low bow Kiyoko was escorted back to the palace; Oikawa shooed them away, saying that he’d make his way back in his own time. It was rare pockets of time like this when he preferred to take time to himself.

Quite suddenly the weight of a small child cracked across his calves, and Oikawa pitched forwards with a grunt, only just managing to catch his fall on the wall to his right.

A young girl, dressed in brightly-coloured yet ragged clothes, was sprawled out on the ground before him, three peaches toppling from inside her yukata.

“What on earth are you doing?” he demanded, more surprised than angry.

The girl gazed up at him in terror but didn’t seem to realise who he was. She hurried to her feet, then, tucking the three peaches back into her yukata. She’d also dropped a small wooden horse, which Oikawa bent to retrieve from the ground.

“Where did you get that?” he asked, handing back the horse. “It has very fine craftsmanship.”

“The man from the peach trees made it for me!” she said. Her eyes lit up bright as stars and she brushed the dirt from the tiny crevices in the horse’s flank.

“Oh? Was this man tall, by any chance?”

“I don’t know, he was sitting down.”

“Were his shoulders big?”

“Oh, yes, very!”

“Did he have dark skin and golden eyes, too? Like an eagle?”

The girl nodded eagerly and Oikawa straightened up, feeling about his cloak until he found a small coin purse, which he handed to the child with a pat on her head. “Go home quickly.”

The girl stared down at the purse in her hands for a moment before taking off at a wild sprint, hopping over part of the collapsed orchard wall in order to scale her way down back into the city.

Oikawa glanced over towards the orchard; he could see the last white blossoms peeking over the top of the wall. Ushijima – it was him, undoubtedly, who was sitting in the orchard whittling toys for the poor children from the city. It was selfless charity, something Oikawa did not see often, and he found himself endeared by it. His heart skipped between his ribs and he pressed a hand to his chest, willing himself out of the blush that was creeping up his neck.

 _How dare he,_ he thought angrily as he strode back towards the palace. He’d almost gone to the orchard himself, but the thought of him sitting peacefully beneath the sweet-smelling peach trees with Ushijima made him feel so warm and uneasy that nausea had risen in his throat. _How dare he act so kindly_.

 

Oikawa insisted on dining earlier than usual that evening. Nobody was particularly happy about the change in strict schedule, but nobody was surprised.

The emperor couldn’t bear to eat until Ushijima was ushered into his rooms, freshly scrubbed and smelling of the forest. His countenance was as usual, and he was silent as they ate. This time, Oikawa was delighted to see, Ushijima ate more, and was able to feed himself this time.

“Show me your hand,” Oikawa said suddenly just as Ushijima brought his chopsticks to his lips. Obediently, the carpenter set down his food and gave Ushijima his right hand.

Oikawa peered down at it; there was a dark smear over the thumb, most likely the mark from soft, rotted bark and moss. There was the tiniest amount of wood dust beneath the fingernails.

“You’re left-handed?”

Ushijima nodded. He almost seemed embarrassed. Oikawa felt that same, treacherous blush heat the back of his neck again.

“Well, either way, I hope you had a nice time with those children today.”

Ushijima glanced up at Oikawa’s feigned indifference. “You saw us?”

Oikawa licked his lips. “I heard.”

Ushijima lowered his eyes and smiled a little, but it was a smile reserved only for himself. Did it remind him of something? Perhaps those children reminded him of his home. Oikawa wanted to know, but couldn’t bring himself to ask.

He glanced to the window; the sky was dark, a slight golden haze rising from the courtyard below. “Will you tell me a story? You promised. Finish the last one and then tell me a story from your home.”

“We ought to finish eating first,” Ushijima said, and for once, Oikawa didn’t argue.


	5. Nights to Weeks

“Please finish,” Oikawa mumbled, the silk of his pillow cool against his cheek. His eyes were half-closed, the darkness of his eyelids slowly turning a rosy pink colour as light filtered over the horizon, gleaming against the tiled rooves of the city beyond the palace and making them glow green like the deeply-coloured peaks of a forest. He couldn’t move; his body was too sleepy, too heavy, too comfortable. Ushijima sat across the room from him and yet he felt inexplicably close. Oikawa couldn’t evade the headiness of his scent nor the gilded glimmer of his eyes. But then again, he was too content to really mind.

“Ah,” Ushijima said suddenly, unfolding the hands that lay on his stomach and straightening up. He glanced towards the window, leaning forwards but a little, until a light dusting of dawn light fell across the back of his neck. “I am afraid the night is over, your Grace. I must take my leave, and you ought to glean at least a few hours sleep before you see to your duties.”

“No.” The noise rose from him in a whine embarrassingly reminiscent of a child whining for his mother. Oikawa could only manage to rise to his elbows, his hair rumpled from where he’d been lying down, eyes shadowed by a furrowed brow following the other man as he pulled his haori about him and made towards the doors. “There really is no way of convincing you, is there?”

Ushijima glanced at him as he slid the door open and Oikawa swore he saw a smile touch his lips. “There is not.”

And then he left. Oikawa fell back against the pillow with a groan and pressed his hands to his face.

He did, however, manage to fit in a few hours of sleep before a steward came in to rouse him. They were hours of deep, deep sleep, and once more Oikawa found himself plagued with dreams of the strangest kind; they were not terrible, nor were they nightmares, especially, and the emperor found them pleasurable and woke up with his senses all but overwhelmed. They were full of dark nights and skies dusted with stars, of high red dunes and wide white tents that were stretched to the size of cities. Colourful lanterns and the smells of spices; somewhere far, far away, and yet somewhere entirely familiar. He woke with an ache in his heart – and ache, he soon realised, for somewhere he’d never been.

“Are you all right, your Grace?” Kindaichi asked as he leaned curiously over Oikawa when he began to rub his hands over his eyes. “You look a little… peaky.”

“I’m fine,” Oikawa insisted, batting at Kindaichi with his hand before slinging his longs legs over the side of his bed and rising to his feet, holding out his arms for one of the maids to slip a silk robe over his shoulders (something he’d found embarrassing in the past, admittedly). “I’m perfectly all right. Did I oversleep?”

“The answer is what you’d expect.” This time it was Hanamaki who spoke, leaning one hand against the doorframe and holding a scroll in the other. “You always oversleep. Your first meeting begins in half an hour.”

Oikawa looked at him, appalled. “I don’t even get to have breakfast?”

Hanamaki shrugged. “If you hadn’t overslept you wouldn’t have this problem.”

Oikawa, with all the grace of an emperor, ignored him.

 

If there was one thing Oikawa knew, it was that every single aspect of his life was bait for rumour. He knew he couldn’t stop them, so instead he made it his business to know every single rumour that was currently in circulation. Between Hanamaki and Matsukawa he had no problem with those things.

However, something struck him as rather curious; everything had been forgotten in lieu of Ushijima’s presence in the court. It seemed as though the carpenter’s rather scattered entrance and consequent detainment in the palace had caused more of a ripple than Oikawa had thought. According to his sources, each and every rumour that jumped from doorstep to doorstep concerned Ushijima Wakatoshi, right from the theory that he was Oikawa’s long lost brother to even more ridiculous notions like the (overwhelmingly popular) rumour that they were _lovers_. The latter made Oikawa so disgusted that he’d gone to his room and sulked for the rest of the day. Certainly, he’d aimed to get Ushijima into his bed, but having sex and being lovers were two entirely different things. At least to Oikawa, anyway.

The palace advisors – Irihata, primarily – seemed to be placated. Ushijima didn’t seem to be distressed and he was still _alive_ , which gave them leave to think that Oikawa’s murderous rampage may have just been over. They knew better than to be _sure_ , of course, as nothing Oikawa ever did was certain, but for the moment it gave them a little peace of mind to know that their emperor wasn’t doing anything stupid.

There soon came a time when Ushijima had spent a number of weeks in the palace. During the day he roamed the grounds, discovering the palace’s secret rooms and facilities, finding out where he could and couldn’t go and what he was able to use. He struck love into the hearts of every maiden in the court (and surely not just the women, either) with the handsomeness of his face and the strength of his body, as well as with the skill of his fingers when he set blade to wood. And yet despite the number of beautiful people inside the court he never seemed interested, and paid no mind to even the most stunning of faces.

During the night he would go to Oikawa’s room. Nobody truly knew what went on behind that closed door, but a number of stewards and maids made a habit of crouching by the door to listen for any sounds. Each time they were disappointed and titillated by the low murmur of a voice – Ushijima’s, undoubtedly – but never a single sound from the emperor. Nobody dared interrupt them.

Oikawa was content. His original intent hung forgotten at the back of his mind, and each time the sun rose over the horizon at dawn he’d tell himself _I’ll let him finish one more story and then I’ll have him executed._ But that one story turned to another, then another, until Oikawa could barely stand it when Ushijima got up to leave. But he never stopped him.

And yet despite the emperor’s complacency, there was still something that bothered him. Aside from the storied Ushijima would tell him, Oikawa realised that he knew next to nothing about the man himself. He knew nothing about his reputation, nor about the reputation of his home. Nothing. And for some reason or another, it irked him in the worst way possible.

He knew he could have asked Matsukawa to find out everything he needed; but that would mean confessing an interest in Ushijima, which was something he’d never dare do, at least not to Matsukawa. Every time he thought about it he could already see the thin little sneer that would stretch across Matsukawa’s face. It was the kind of sneer he never wanted to face.

So he tried his best not to think about the alluring enigma that was Ushijima Wakatoshi; he tried to think of important things like the state of his country and foreign affairs, and of his only recently announced fiancée, Kiyoko Shimizu. His engagement was what made his advisors so happy, but it left Oikawa with a slightly bitter taste in his mouth.

“So, Shimizu-san,” he began when they sat in a small walled courtyard near the peach orchards at a table set with barley tea and the tiniest baked sweets Oikawa had ever seen. He’d waved away the maids beforehand; they both preferred the solitude.

“Please, call me Kiyoko, since we’re to be married.” Her voice was not low, and yet it reverberated up Oikawa’s spine as though it was, and as her dark lashes fanned out over her cheeks he thought that she’d be better immortalised in a woodprint.

“All right, Kiyoko. You used to live in the north, didn’t you? Before you came here?”

She nods, adjusting her parasol against the slant of the sun. It’s blue, this time, and as the light falls across her face Oikawa almost thinks she’s underwater.

“Did you know of a village in the mountains? I don’t know much about that region, but I do know that those mountains can be harsh and that there’s few villages in their farthest reaches, but you seem like someone who would know.”

The smile Kiyoko gave him was coy, hidden behind the lip of her cup. “I do know. I know of one village hidden in the mountains – most of the others have been abandoned in some great exodus to the cities, a rather curious event – but I’ve been there only a few times. It’s built around one of the oldest shrines in the region, you see, so the constant influx of visitors keeps it thriving. It’s remarkable.”

Oikawa twisted his own cup around in his hands, the porcelain warm between his palms, the sun beating against the back of his neck. “So it’s all thanks to the shrine, then?”

Kiyoko still looked at him with the lids of her eyes drawn low and knowing. “Hardly. There’s a master craftsman who lives in that village; I’ve heard that his pieces can’t be rivalled by anybody in the country. He was something like a pillar of that village, although I suspect they’re finding it difficult now that he’s been cooped up in the imperial palace.” She raised a single, perfectly-sculpted eyebrow, and Oikawa flushed from his neck to his hairline. “Why are you asking me this?”

Oikawa rubbed the back of his neck and glanced away. “I’m just curious, that’s all. I don’t like having strangers hanging around me.” Nothing about what he said was right – the palace is full of strangers, and he’d been the one who’d confined Ushijima to the palace in the first place. Kiyoko, of course, knew this, but she said nothing.

“What do you know of Ushijima?”

Kiyoko spread her hands in front of her; they were long and pale and perfect, with half-moon nails that reminded Oikawa’s of his own. “Ah… not much, I’m afraid. I know his sister, but Ushijima always kept to himself. I suspect the reason he’s so skilled at what he does is that he has years and years of disciplined experience. He seemed to find happiness in his solitude, so nobody ever particularly bothered him. This is what his sister told me, anyway. She told me that’s why they moved there – because Ushijima works better without others to bother him. He had a few of the village boys as apprentices, though, which was nice.” She smiled vacantly, then, as though reflecting on a particularly fond memory.

“He wasn’t born there?”

“Oh, no. I’m not sure where they came from, but they weren’t born there. In fact… nobody’s really sure where they’re from. As far as I can tell, the two of them just appeared one day with no money and no parents. I think it’s astounding that they managed to make such a standing for themselves in such an out-of-the-way place.” Her voice softened, then, her silvery eyes dropping down to the backs of her own hands. “I never thought they got enough credit for it.”

Oikawa set his chin on his hand and sat there in the silence that followed. Kiyoko’s story had asked more questions than it had answered. Where had Ushijima come from, then? Why did he turn up so suddenly and unexplained in some tiny village in the mountains? Indeed, the darkness of his skin spoke of years in the sun, which certainly isn’t something he would have gotten from a tree-shaded village, nor from hours spent in a carpentry shed. Something was missing – something important. But Oikawa didn’t know what it was, and neither did Kiyoko. The only person who had the answers Oikawa was looking for was Ushijima himself.

As the minutes went by Oikawa found it easier to open up to Kiyoko. He asked more questions about the village and about Ushijima and his sister, and Kiyoko supplied him readily. He then asked about her home, and he watched as her face lit up and her words came easily in her stories. But they fell flat; they were nothing like the stories Ushijima told, and while she spoke very nicely, Oikawa couldn’t help but remember the deep baritone of Ushijima’s voice as it filled his bedroom late at night.

And he wished he could listen to that instead.

“…your Grace?” Kiyoko’s concerned voice cut him back into reality and he started slightly in his seat, his chin slipping away from where it rested against the heel of his palm. “Is something bothering you?”

“No,” Oikawa answered quickly, trying to cover the way his voice rose high with a nervous little laugh. “Of course not.”

“You seem concerned about something. If there’s anything I can do –,”

“There isn’t,” Oikawa interrupted, his voice oddly flat. “But thank you for offering.” He added the last part gently, and Kiyoko smiled at him, her painted red lips spreading in a half-moon across her face.

 

* * *

 

 

They parted ways at about midday, when the sun rose high and hot enough to grow uncomfortable. Oikawa had gone indoors expecting to be bombarded with responsibilities and meetings, as he usually was, but when nobody chased him, he had to seek out Hanamaki to ask if he had anything he needed to do.

“You should try and memorise your own schedule,” Hanamaki told him with the slightest of grins. “But no. There’s nothing. It would appear you have the afternoon all to yourself.”

Oikawa was so surprised to have time to do whatever he wanted that he had to sit and think for a bit. It was strange having nobody tell him what to do – even as a child everything was organised, right down to the toys he played with.

In the end he decided to go to the dojo, which was located at the very back of the palace grounds. It was a low building constructed of pine and stone, surrounded by thick copses of maples. It was the kind of place that was hard to happen across accidentally, which was why Oikawa liked it so much. It offered him solace.

But when he arrived he found that he was not, in fact, alone.

The doors of the dojo stood slightly open, and Oikawa leaned down to peer through the gap, fully intending to spy on whoever was inside. The _last_ person he expected to see half-naked and armed with a kendo stick, however, was Ushijima Wakatoshi.

Certainly, the man had an exceptional physique that was obviously toned and trained by years of physical exertion. Oikawa had always attributed it to carpentry, though, as well as living so long from any town. He’d never expected Ushijima to be skilled in the art of the sword, be it wooden or not, and he found himself to be feeling a little impressed by Ushijima’s quick capability and steady preciseness. He stayed kneeling at the door, undetected, until his blood began to boil in his veins and the skin at the back of his neck began to prickle. Ushijima’s chest was strong and broad, his waist trimmed and his arms solid and corded with muscle. He was _big_ – big and strong, much like the mountains that cradled the valley. With each swing of his sword those muscles would move, glistening with sweat, swimming and bunching beneath the dark membrane of skin. Oikawa was mesmerised, as though he was watching a dance of water spirits.

Oikawa himself hadn’t picked up a sword since… well, quite some time. In fact, watching Ushijima swinging and sweating alone in the dojo was enough to arouse the desire to _move_ , to push his body to the very limits of its ability, to grunt and sweat and hurt from exertion.

He threw open the doors with his heart beating in his throat. “Let me spar with you.”

Ushijima stared at him in shock for a few moments, until he realised what had just happened and was able to pull himself together. “You… ah. Are you sure?” His voice hitched as he tried to catch his breath, the tip of his sword trailing over the floor of the dojo as he watched Oikawa throw off his coat and pick one of the training swords off the wall. He tossed the hilt from hand to hand, testing the weight, before giving it an experimental swing.

“Of course I’m sure. I wouldn’t have asked otherwise.” Oikawa strolled across the dojo to stand at the other end of it, leaning casually against his weapon as Ushijima straightened up and sunk down slightly into a battle-ready stance.

“Be it on your own head, then.”

Oikawa couldn’t imagine anybody else having the nerve to say that to him. He grinned.

When they began to spar, Oikawa was even more shocked by Ushijima’s formidable strength than he had been while watching. All he seemed to be was the embodiment of raw power, the force of a landslide bearing down on a village or the deep, undisputable potential of an active volcano. Oikawa couldn’t describe how it felt to receive the brunt of Ushijima’s strokes, but more than once was he gripped by the worry of having one of the swords splintered. Ushijima, while strong, was also fast, and wherever Oikawa dodged to he would suddenly find himself barred by the stocky wall of the carpenter’s body.

Oikawa had planned on holding himself back. After all, he’d trained here since he was old enough to walk, and there were very few sportsmen in the country who could match his skills of swordsmanship. But once faced with Ushijima he realised he’d found his equal, and he was able to throw himself entirely into their sparring session; he shed his clothing bit by bit until he was just as bared as Ushijima was, his own skin drenched in sweat, his hair sticking to his face. Excitement thrummed in his veins, over his skin, right down to the tips of his fingers.

It was the kind of excitement Oikawa hadn’t felt in a long, long time. Not since –

Oikawa faltered. It was only slight – the tiniest of missteps – but it was enough to Ushijima. It’s a crack big enough for him to tear open, and he did, wasting no time in knocking the emperor’s feet out from beneath him and pinning him to the ground. Oikawa felt the carpenter’s hot breath against his neck and the heat of his sweat-slicked skin; any other time he might have been titillated by it, but the guilty nausea rising in his gut numbs any kind of pleasure he might have had.

“Did I hurt you?” Ushijima asked when he realised Oikawa wasn’t smiling. He let off his weight and sat back on his haunches, his sword balanced across his lap, watching silently as Oikawa lifted himself up into a sitting position. The emperor wiped at his brow with the back of his hand and shook his head.

“No,” he replied. “I’m not… I’m sorry. I have to go.” He didn’t so much as look back when he grabbed his clothes and fled the dojo, tugging on the items as he left. He couldn’t breathe – air wouldn’t come to him, and even the open garden felt too close, too suffocating.

He only stopped running by the time he got to the pond by the palace gates. He fell to his knees beside it, splashing the cool water over his face and neck to try and calm himself. Why had the guilt surged so strong so suddenly? He knelt with his head bowed to the mossy stone until his breathing began to slow again, and only when he was completely composed did he admit himself back inside the palace. He slipped into a shadowed alcove to smooth down his hair and rite his robes before facing the court.

He didn’t see Ushijima for the rest of the afternoon.

“You aren’t eating anything,” Matsukawa observed dryly as Oikawa sat at the table in the dining hall, picking at his food with his chopsticks. The emperor only shrugged, not looking up. “Did something happen?”

Oikawa’s voice was quieter than a whisper. “Nothing happened.”

Matsukawa, while clearly disturbed by the emperor’s mutedness, elected to say nothing. He knew that sometimes it was best to let Oikawa wallow in his own thoughts for a while – some of his most successful military strategies were forged like that.

An hour later Oikawa pushed his food away. His handsome face was twisted with an emotion Matsukawa could not place. “Make sure Ushiwaka is in my rooms by the time I’ve finished bathing.”

Matsukawa nodded and bowed deeply as the emperor swept from the room, his stomach as empty as when he had entered.

Oikawa felt dirty. He felt grimy in a way he knew had nothing to do with the sweat of the afternoon at the dojo; he felt dirty on the inside, as though his organs were caked in the blackest of tar. He wanted to thread open his skin and rinse himself out with boiling water – but of course such a thing was impossible, so he had to make do with sinking up to the neck in the boiling waters of his private bath. The salts that the servants had added to the water made his skin tingle. If he soaked himself long enough he could forget his body was there, that he was bound to the earth. Soon his body became numb and his skin became soft and pink from the heat. He slowly let himself slide down until the water swallowed him up, and while the water was scalding against the delicate skin of his face, he really didn’t mind.

As he’d requested, Ushijima was waiting in his room like he always was, sitting on his heels with a perfectly neutral expression smoothed over his features. Oikawa had grown strangely irked by that one particular expression of nothingness – did he look at other people like that, too? Did he regard his sister with such empty eyes? Did he stare so soullessly at the children for whom he’d carved those small wooden toys? The emperor allowed himself only a second to grind his teeth before shutting the door and sealing their privacy.

“Do you despise me?” he asked as he crossed from the threshold to his bed, his robe trailing along the floor behind him. Ushijima followed him with his eyes, face ever unchanging, until Oikawa let his body fall against the soft down mattress.

“I don’t.”

Oikawa scoffed. “You’re lying.” He sat up, then, smirking and leaning back onto his elbows. “I can see it on your face.”

Something in Ushijima’s expression cracked. Oikawa saw it immediately. It was the absence of emotion that had alerted him to the fact that Ushijima might just hate him – what would be safer, after all, than keeping oneself private when faced with a captor? It was elementary logic.

“You know that in Europe they’ve taken to using great wooden contraptions to cut off people’s heads? I don’t appreciate liars, Ushiwaka-chan.” The two remarks appeared unrelated, but Oikawa knew Ushijima could put two and two together. He only smiled, appreciating the way Ushijima’s big hands tensed on his thighs.

“I’m not lying,” Ushijima insisted. “I do not hate you. I did, at first, but now I feel nothing towards you.”

Somehow that was even worse.

“Just… finish the story you started last night.” Oikawa tore his gaze away from Ushijima and threw himself back against his pillows.

As the carpenter’s voice filled the room, Oikawa was in turn filled with the same, familiar warmth he encountered whenever the stories were told. It was something like deep comfort, settling into the very marrow of his bones and lulling him into sleepiness, though not quite into slumber.

“I want another,” Oikawa mumbled around midnight, just as Ushijima’s story drew to conclusion and he rose to leave. “But come over here. I can’t here you when you sit so far away.” Sleepily, he patted the bed beside him. Against all better judgement, of course.

Judgement, however, is muted when it comes to being comfortable. Oikawa’s guard was lowered; the room was warm and softly lit, his kingdom was peaceful and his business was in order. Even the worries that _did_ happen to weigh down his heart couldn’t penetrate the close sphere of comfort he found himself in, and for a brief moment Ushijima wasn’t his prisoner.

The carpenter hesitated for no longer than a second. He’d gotten into the habit of obeying orders, however slowly, knowing that any show of rebellion could put his head on the chopping block. The mattress dipped as he lay his weight onto it, settling – albeit a little gingerly – down beside the emperor.

He was shocked at what he saw.

To Ushijima, the emperor had always been sharp and cold and as beautiful as ice. His world was a private one, his brattiness and his bad attitude an ugly façade. But here – lying engulfed in the soft silken pillows – the ice had begun to melt like the winter into spring, and Oikawa lay like a melting spring flower, soft and fragrant and sweet. He was so relaxed like that, with his thin wrists draped above his head and a slip of his thigh showing beneath his yukata; Ushijima almost laid his lips to the swanlike column of the emperor’s throat. He caught himself just in time.

As per the emperor’s request, Ushijima began yet another tale. He let his words flow as his eyes gently traced over Oikawa’s face, drinking in the way his lashed fanned over his cheek and the way his lips rested in a complacent little smile. He was so… beautiful. As if he’d been crafted out of Ushijima’s words themselves, something right out of a myth.

“Your Grace,” Ushijima murmured, prompting Oikawa to open his eyes. Somehow they’d moved even closer, Ushijima’s head propped upon his arm and Oikawa’s body curled towards him. Oikawa could _smell_ him – smell the forest and the ocean and a hint of steel.

“Why’d you stop?” Oikawa asks unhappily, frowning, his voice slurred with sleepiness. His long, elegant hand reaches out blindly to take hold of the front of Ushijima’s yukata, pulling aside the neckline in nothing more than an impertinent gesture, exposing a plane of dark, muscled skin. “Don’t stop.”

“It is already dawn.”

Oikawa’s frown deepened.

When Ushijima made to get up, Oikawa’s grip tightened, and he refused to let go.

“Don’t leave,” he murmured. Ushijima tentatively lowered himself back down into the warm cradle of Oikawa’s bed in response. “Stay with me just a little longer.”

Ushijima didn’t reply; his own body had grown heavy with exhaustion much like it always did at dawn, and his muscles lost their tension as he let himself relax. Oikawa’s fingers didn’t let go of the front of his yukata and it was like that they both fell asleep, the dawn light creeping into a room consumed by their breathing.

**Author's Note:**

> any comments/kudos are immensely appreciated!!! ･*☆


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